Home > Faculty > Dr. Pantelis Tsoulfas

Pantelis Tsoulfas, M.D. Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Cell Biology & Anatomy 1095 NW 14th Terrace Telephone: (305) 243 3433 FAX: (305) 243 3434 ptsoulfa@med.miami.edu

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Curriculum Vitae

M.D. Universita di Pavia 1987
Postdoctoral Fellow, California Institute of Technology 1987-1991
Postdoctoral Fellow, ABL.FCRDC.NCI Frederick 1991-1994
IRTA Fellow, NINDS, NIH 1994-1996
Assistant Professor, University of Miami 1996-2002
Associate Professor, University of Miami 2002-present

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Research Interests

The research in my laboratory is currently focused on two major areas. The first area explores the early events of neurotrophin receptor activation and their effects on neural stem cells and the second explores the biological mechanisms involved in the maintenance and differentiation of neural stem cells.

Neurotrophins and trk mediated signaling.

The NGF family of growth factors mediate their effects through the trk family of receptor tyrosine kinase and through p75 a member of the TNF family of receptors. Neurotrophins induce the receptors to dimerize. Following dimerization, the receptors autophosphorylate on specific tyrosine residues that serve as docking sites for other signaling molecules that initiate several signaling cascades, leading to the activation of different key proteins important for biological responses. We are using new visualization techniques to map the dynamic interactions of the receptors and signaling molecules and their trafficking in vivo. Additional ongoing projects include the role that neurotrophins have on the motility and differentiation of neural stem cells.

Maintanance and differentiation of neural stem cells.
We are investigating how cell fate is controlled by intrinsic and exogenous factors and which molecules are involved in maintaining the stem cell characteristics. Our laboratory uses several approaches including in vitro and in vivo techniques to manipulate the expression of molecules that act as dominant negative or constitutively active. We are taking advantage of techniques such as microarray analysis and subtractive hybridization to isolate genes involved at different stages of stem cell differentiation.

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Selected Publications

Urrea C, Castellanos DA, Sagen J, Tsoulfas P, Bramlett HM, Dietrich WD.
Widespread cellular proliferation and focal neurogenesis after traumatic brain injury in the rat. Restor Neurol Neurosci.  25:65-76.

Abdellatif A,  Pelt J, Howard RM, Tsoulfas P,  Xu XM, Whittemore SR (2004) Gene delivery to the spinal cord: comparison between lentiviral, adenoviral, and retroviral vector delivery systems.  J Neurosci Res.  84:553-567.

Enzmann GU*, RL Benton*, JP Woock, RM Howard, P Tsoulfas & SR Whittemore (2005) Consequences of noggin expression by glial and neuronal precursor cells engrafted into the injured spinal cord. Exp Neurol 195:293-304. 

Cao Q, Xu X-M, DeVries WH, Enzmann GU, Ping P, Wood PM, Tsoulfas P, Bunge MB, Whittemore SR (2005) Functional recovery in traumatic spinal cord injury following transplantation of multineurotrophin-expressing glial precursor cells. J Neurosci 25:6947-6957.

Mammolenti M*, Gajavelli S*, Tsoulfas P, Levy R  (2004) Absence of major histocompatibility complex class I on neural stem cells does not permit natural killer cell killing and prevents recognition by alloreactive cytotoxic T lymphocytes in vitro. Stem Cells. 22: 1101-1110. (*these authors contributed equally).

Baez JC, Gajavelli S, Thomas CK, Grumbles RM, Aparicio B, Byer D, Tsoulfas P (2004) Embryonic cerebral cortex cells retain CNS phenotypes after transplantation into peripheral nerve. Exp Neurol. 189:422-425.

Gajavelli S, Wood PM, Pennica D, Whittemore SR, Tsoulfas P (2004) BMP signaling initiates a neural crest differentiation program in embryonic rat CNS stem cells. Exp Neurol. 188:205-223.

Plum LA, Parada LF, Tsoulfas P, Clagett-Dame M. Retinoic acid combined with neurotrophin-3 enhances the survival and neurite outgrowth of embryonic sympathetic neurons. Exp Biol Med 2001 Sep;226(8):766-75.

Cao QL, Zhang YP, Howard RM, Walters WM, Tsoulfas P, Whittemore SR. Pluripotent stem cells engrafted into the normal or lesioned adult rat spinal cord are restricted to a glial lineage. Exp Neurol. 2001 Jan;167(1):48-58.

Lin MI, Das I, Schwartz GM, Tsoulfas P, Mikawa T, Hempstead BL. Trk C receptor signaling regulates cardiac myocyte proliferation during early heart development in vivo. Dev Biol. 2000 Oct 15;226(2):180-91.

O'Connell L, Hongo JA, Presta LG, Tsoulfas P. TrkA amino acids controlling specificity for nerve growth factor.
J Biol Chem. 2000 Mar 17;275(11):7870-7.

Vicario-Abejon C, Collin C, Tsoulfas P, McKay RD. Hippocampal stem cells differentiate into excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Eur J Neurosci. 2000 Feb;12(2):677-88.

Urfer R, Tsoulfas P, O'Connell L, Hongo JA, Zhao W, Presta LG. High resolution mapping of the binding site of TrkA for nerve growth factor and TrkC for neurotrophin-3 on the second immunoglobulin-like domain of the Trk receptors. J Biol Chem. 1998 Mar 6;273(10):5829-40.

Tessarollo L, Tsoulfas P, Donovan MJ, Palko ME, Blair-Flynn J, Hempstead BL, Parada LF. Targeted deletion of all isoforms of the trkC gene suggests the use of alternate receptors by its ligand neurotrophin-3 in neuronal development and implicates trkC in normal cardiogenesis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1997 Dec 23;94(26):14776-81.

Urfer R, Tsoulfas P, O'Connell L, Presta LG. Specificity determinants in neurotrophin-3 and design of nerve growth factor-based trkC agonists by changing central beta-strand bundle residues to their neurotrophin-3 analogs. Biochemistry. 1997 Apr 22;36(16):4775-81.

View published research articles by Dr. Tsoulfas in the National Library of Medicine

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